These baggers, I like them. They remind me of Roman chariots, for kings. These are the top of custom bikes, in my opinion. They guy that built it, I give him mad respect.
These big wheels take a lot more to build than one of my bobbers. My bobbers, I can make a mistake, and leave it as character. You make a mistake on these big wheels, you better fix it. This is not bobber money!
Myself, I say I build bobbers. I have not had the chance to move on. Of course, I have put some bikes back to factory, but that doesn’t count as a build.
Check http://www.abikerslifeforme.com . You will find a whole page for a bagger build. There is one coming up, and I’ll be part of the build. We will be moving up!
If you dont like, or build baggers you shouldn’t really be saying you build bikes. Baggers are the top. Every club almost requires them. You wont find many clubs allowing a bobber, Cafe racer, or anything else, in. If you want to make a living, you better be in with the clubs.
Real quick, thank you guys for stopping by here. Truthfully, support is had to get. A Biker’s Life For Me is growing everyday. Yall try not to forget that only one person is doing this. Help was not possible to find.
If you can, stop by the sticker gallery and pick up a sticker. They are just $8. Every little bit of support helps. I’m trying to upgrade my site to have a serious store, to sell bikes. It isnt free. Selling stickers is going to get me there! Thanks for reading!
Barnyard! We find ourselves here a good bit! To be completely honest, if it is a swap meet, jockey lot, flea market, or auction, im happy to be there!
Over in Greer South Carolina sit rolls and rolls of metal buildings. They are filled from everything from cockrings, to a mechanical Jesus, that sings. It’s a thrift heaven!
The first cool spot I found, Isaac’s Works. They sell biker rings, whips, and other items for bikers. Not pictured, they also etch glass! They had some nice work, and I wish I would have got a picture!
Now, if you need a nice whip, bracelet, ring, or etched glass, they have it. One of my favorite items is that black and red whip! Isaac Works is a great designer of these items!
Right beside Issac Works , is S&M Customes! S&M is a biker hook up! You can get some decent vest, shirts, patches, and stickers. They also have a small collection of saddle bags. Their vests are worth swinging by and checking out.
S&M Also offers custom shirts and license plates! They will also do decals, shirts, and anything else you need! S&M Graphics and More should be one of your main reasons for the drive up to Barnyard!
Around the way is the top reason we make the ride to Barnyard! Reaper’s Motorcycle Apparel! Here you are going to find a little but of everything. It really doesn’t matter what kind of biker you are, Reaper’s has something you want!
This front rack, I would spend a lot of money right here, if I had it! There are all types of vest, some vintage. T-shirts, and a lot more. Look at the bottom of the rack, and all the way to the back. See that sports bike racing suit? Like I said, something for every biker!
Look at all them bars! I want to look at every set! Then, I can’t stop looking at the seats! The bags! The bags! Look at that collection! Is that a cup holder for my motorcycle? DON’T TURN AROUND!
You did it anyways! Look at all the shine! It looks like a pile of mufflers! It is Harley mufflers, pegs, decorative pieces, and a lot more. This one table is worth a fortune!
Over around the corner, you will find boots. His boots are nice, and a reasonable price. Everything in here is reasonable. You will also find bandannas, pony tail ties, and gloves. Reaper’s even have heated gloves. Then, his helmet collection is amazing. Being as close as Barnyard in to N.C. pick up a nice $25 helmet! Yep, $25! That’s what I payed. I also got a pretty, decorated, lady biker helmet for $40!
So, when you find you and the guys heading up 101, going through Greer, swing by Barnyard! You won’t only find biker items. They have a little of it all. Try the Tacos!
Thanks for reading! I hope you enjoyed our visit to Barnyard, and found some great information! Yall be safe, and have a goodun!
Not that Nova, this is a motorcycle project. The Novas pictured below, these are the Novas Im talking about.
The V twin bolted on it, is designed and built by Porsche. They are either 4 cylinder or 6, from 550 to 1000ccs. I mean Porsche built it. I should not have to tell you that it was built for speed and performance.
A Nova bike, when you order parts, you ordered parts for a Nova, and the year it was built. Almost every part was interchangeable, all the way down to the crank case, with all the bikes. This would change the entire bike market. Parts would be easy to find, and cheap.
Nova was a game changer, in so many ways. A Porsche motor on my 1978, the year I was born, Bobber. Why hell yes, I want that. I want a super fast cruiser that I can sling around some curves!
Unfortunately, dreamers get old. They retire, and some people replace them with people that only care about profit. They would end the Harley Davidson’s Nova program before a bike was even built. The Nova would be pushed aside for less performance and luxury. A comfortable cruise. They guy who got the job, was scared to go fast, if you ask me. They also didn’t like the shaft drive or small tanks.
So what do yall think? Could Nova had pushed Harley up, instead of the constant drop in market they have seen? Now, all I see saving Harley is a new market. Everyone with a Harley wants a Harley trailer. They want a Harley side by side. The want a Harley 4 wheeler. Almost every other motorcycle company has car factories. HD doesn’t have car money. They need something else. What do yall think it should be? Maybe it is the new super charger!
There is one thing that people does that I dont like, and you wont find on my bikes. I mean if you like it, go ahead.
Fake oil tanks. I dont like the look. I dont the idea of adding weight. I want to look through the bike. I want to find ways to hide my wires, that haven’t been done.
Here are two of my ways. The below bike is a 1998 Suzuki Intruder. It is a bobber, obviously. I really don’t like anything else. If you look behind the muffler, you will see the battery. It is well hidden, and factory. That is a plus.
You run the wires up the center of the frame, and to the bottom of the seat. The factory Intruder seat, is awesome. It is what you see. The bottom sits up on two plastic legs, about 3 inches. You hide everything electrical under this seat, leaving the hole to see through, and not adding weight. You can add a pan under the seat and bolt to that, of drill and tap the bottom of the seat to hold your electronics.
Above is a 92 Shadow 600. Most people add a fake oil tank, a big ugly box, or leave the factory set up. For me, that is not what im after. Bobbers are empty. They don’t have fake metal parts, added. There is no point in doing this.
By adding your own coolant bottle, you can hide all of your electronics. Look behind the chain. Do you see the coolant over flow? It is the off white box. You can barely see it.
It just so happens, that is a little bit bigger than a battery. A nice 9mm bolt, bolts into the frame at this spot. You can make a thin metal box, thin is light, that bolts up, and hooks over the bar that runs across, and hide all of your wires. The box is safe, if the plastic coolant tank can make it. This will leave the large hole, which I prefer, in your bike. It will be as hard to see as the factory coolant tank.
Doing these bikes this way, in my opinion, is a cleaner, faster, look. It sticks to the idea of a bobber having all the extra removed, and not adding. I like the oil tank look on bikes that need an oil can. For me, modern bikes shouldn’t have them.
Soon, we will have an article about building this battery box out of an ammo can! Thanks for reading! Please give us a ahare!
Let’s talk about that Bucket List ride! For me it is Miami at 3am, headed down the interstate on a Ninja. Just blasting… 150mph, 160mph, the speed tears begin to run down your face, 170, 180. The Ninja, she screams her cry of war.
Not this ninja…
190, the vibrations leave, the world tunnels. 200, the street lights become a solid beam. 210, silence, but the laughter of death in the wind. Everything is at peace.
Micro burst… 215… 220… You are at the limits… Nobody has went faster on a street bike tire… Life is a fleeting memory. Death is now chasing you, and losing the race. The lights of the cars look like tracers from Akira…
That is my Bucket List ride. What is your’s? Drop a comment! Thanks for reading! Give us a share!
Were yall excited about the Bagger racing? I am. I dont care if Harley makes it. Im American, and unfortunately only the strong survives here. If you dont believe that this is how it works here, let’s go to Detroit. Ill show you 47 automobile factories, and only two that builds cars. Harley can go the way of Pontiac, and so many others. If I had the money, it would be invest in a Put against Harley, which means as they lose money, I would make money.
Harley is an American icon. I dont want to see them fail. I want them to be here well after all of us. These races are failing them, or Harley is failing these races. Look at the picture. Harley is there, most of the bikes are Harley. Did they win? 2nd. Did they spend any money, no! They should be sponsors, but sponsored nobody!
They should be running this. There should be a series, not one race. I know mass amounts of people that would love to race their bagger. I GET PASSED BY MOTORCYCLE CLUBS FULL OF THEM. They want to show up. They want to go fast. I would build a bagger to race!
I want to show up with my big group of friends, with our Harley, and race! There is nothing more that I want to do! If I can’t do that, im racing a sports bike, if I can’t do that, im putting this bobber in dirt track races.
How do you save Harley? How do we help? We take it from them. Right now Harley Davidson’s (HOG) stock is down another dollar and a half. It is $28 a share. We cant all afford the bikes, but we can afford part in the company.
We have to own Harley Davidson. We, the riders, even us metric riders, have to take it from those that killed projects like the Nova project. That one project, instead of EVO, would have made Harley the super power we all want.
We have to force them to drop the prices. We have to force them to give us bikes that will replace these metrics. We need interchangeable parts. The only way “We” are going to be listened to, is by buying the company.
If we want Harley to be part of our world, we must own it, as we do the streets. We must run it. We must have a say. It is the bike most bikers want, and it is time they provide the bikes that we want.
These races, which are mostly Harley bikes, needs to be more than one race a year. We need to see Harly logos all over them. We need to see young men racing them, and building a new dream for the next generations, not rich movie stars riding with training wheels.
We need to revisit and renew the Nova project. We need to be able to fire CEOs and presidents, until Harley is once again affordable, and strong. The only way to get anything, buy Harley from those that are killing her.
We are bikers. We are outlaws. We are rebels. We do things we are not supposed to do. We go into places they don’t want us in. They expect us to buy bikes, not stock. We need to rebel, and buy the company. It is time that we walk into board rooms. We need to do everything we can to put a biker back on top of Harley, not the bike, but the company.
Am I wrong? I got like $60 to spend, that is two shares. Yall with me?
Was Harley going to close the doors? Yes. After the third quarter of 2019, HD lost over a hundred million dollars in the Indian market place. They had no choice, when India was dragging them down to under a billion dollar company.
What is Harley going to do? They sold out the name to Hero. Harley will be leaving India, but India will still be able to buy a “premium” Harley Davidson, except from Hero. The idea of doing India like they do America, build overly expensive, under powered bikes, and force them onto the market, failed them.
Hero will now be building a knock off Harley Davidson, with real Harley badges. The bikes will be cheaply made, in a less than satisfactory factory. This will, by all rights, be a money run on the Indian market, with a inferior product, at a premium price.
If these Hero products will make it to America, is unclear. Harley Davidson has not said anything about this. With the change of leadership in America, you might.
During October of 2020, a lot of things happened at the quarter’s HOG earning report meeting. Zeitz drove in some coffin nails on large chunks of Harley Davidson. He turned their focus to the network of owners, who want profits.
Really, this could go either way. Riders in America, you are getting the focus of the entire company. They are coming back to try and rebuild. Most of the world is losing out, for the US.
Harley Davidson has left 40 world markets. They are bringing those resources home. All that extra money will be spent here, on dealerships, and other things that will only turn a profit.
This will be pretty decent, if you use Harley for service. They will be speeding the process up, and improving turn around times. It is pretty good to see some positive focus on the riders, but everything comes at a price.
Zeitz goes on to talk about that price. A new Harley comes at a hefty price. They have come to notice the value of their used bikes. Harley will now turn their focus on this market.
A big blow to riders, do not expect to see any more premonitions, or discounts. You wont be getting anything else for the cheap. You will pay full price for everything you buy from them.
They plan to increase the value of used motorcycles. If you own a Harley, this is an awesome deal for you. If this works, your bikes’ resale value will go up.
What will future prospective Harley buyers see? Well, it is obvious that the price of used Harleys will go up. The price of new bikes will follow. Over the last three months, HOG gained 22% back to their market value. They did it with used bikes. The future better have a deep pocket.
The plan to drive up that price, it is simpler than you think. 30% of Harley Davidson’s line-up will be cut. See, when you are Harley Davidson, and you can control the market, you do just that. By limiting the styles and numbers of bikes being produced, the value of a used Harleys will go up. I think that is going to push people to Indian or metric bikes, who do not make many dash for cash moves.
Next, they might have given the name for use to Hero in India, but a lot of others are going to lose it. HOG parts will now be made by HOG. The shirts and other merchandise will come directly from Harley. I mean, just now?
Another big change, the fiscal year. Harley will now release new bikes before their best quarter This will be near the end of winter, when the new riders start buying in. I have been unable to find the exact release date. Of course, ill write about it when I do.
Next up was the change to E-Bike. The bike will be changed to the “Series 1” powered by Harley. Series one will now build these bikes. These resources will be put back into motorcycles.
The market is a fun ride, just like the bikes! Thanks for reading! Stop by and give my group a like, or stay where you are, ill be around! Keep your elbows pointed to the sky!
In 2019, Hatley Davidson applied for a patent. This patent was to be able to add a super charger to Harley engines!
Tucked in over the crank case.
If you have been paying attention to HD lately, you would know about management changes, and refocusing on the company. This has caused Harley to refocus on used bikes. New management proved that new bikes wouldn’t sell.
Belt driven.
Unfortunately, this project is left over from the old management. Like the Nova project, which would have made almost all HD bikes parts interchangeable, they could crush it. But, the design of this super charger, is something new!
The belt is geared into the crankshaft.
This super charger bolts right on to the crankshaft, with no modifications. Harley has not said if it will be available for used bikes, or if it will be at all. Another strange feature is the belt tensioner.
Air…
On most belts, you must tighten the tensioner. On this one, you will never tighten it. This super charger rides on two slide rails. When you go down the road, you tighten the belt. There is no belt tensioner. It doesn’t matter how old, or stretched, the belt gets, it slides good enough to keep it tight!
Springs also help hold the super charger back. Will this project come to fruition, or will it be scraped? This are questions that Harley has not answered! It might come out on new bikes, and it might end up with Screaming Eagle? We will have to wait to see!
Chasing that normal life… It just wasn’t possible. My mind won’t let me. I have to dream, I have to run after them, or I’ll lose control.
Sitting there, behind a desk, I have been there. It was miserable. For some people, it is the dream. They went to the classes, as I did, and found their path.
Others, they jumped into construction. They build, and love every minute of it. That’s how I have spent parts of my life. Normal… That white picket fence, that car payment, I could not do it.
The bottom of Gen X… Have you seen fight club? That’s life. A generation of men raised by women… A generation without a war… A lot of that movie makes sense.
We were cotton mill kids. We had it all. We had a beautiful town. During Christmas, this place was wrapped with lights. It was amazing.
Then, one day, a man from Washington spoke up. He was going to save u all. A few months later, the cotton mill was forced to close. That beautiful town, slowly died. The mill was burnt, and the property declared unusable.
We got those Red, White, Pink slip blues, Hank sings about. Lucky for us, we would never lose the house. We picked up a ragged out mill house for $5000. I had 5 siblings. Tax checks helped get it.
Then, that mill closed. Like I said, I had 5 siblings. We could no longer afford to feed us all. My older sister and older brother, they had to move in with family. This ripped my family apart, still today.
As it went with the South Carolina motto, from “Smiling Faces, and Beautiful Places”, to ” Dum Spiro Spero”. Eating good, keeping a family car, keeping the heat on, for we had breath, we hoped.
Cartoons and video games. That was my escape. I found a role model in a Cartoon. His mama, like mine, calls him Pete. She is a sweet lady, that only wanted the best for him.
Unfortunately for him, he didn’t have my step dad. He fought, until he died, to make sure I was taken care of, and the generations below me. I will always have that $5000 home to go back to. Except, unlike having giant rats, as it did when I was a child, it is a beautiful bungalow home, stashed behind flower beds that holds generations of my family’s flower. You can even see endanger species in our beds.
My daddy lived his dreams. He worked hard. He was in the Navy, the Gaurds, then spent his life in the mills. He earned his dream.
The way it ended, he told me to never do what he did. I was free. I struggled, spent nights cold and hungry, but I was free. Not many men have what I have, and to never give up dreaming.
This blog is a little background about me. I come tonight with advice. Damn it, they come at me everyday, telling me to stop. They tell me to go find a normal job, have a normal life. They tell me I can no longer dream. I can’t write, build, or anything.
With a smile on my face, I say to them, no. I am living my normal. I’m doing as my daddy did, and building what I want. Don’t listen to them. Be you, dream. Fight for those dreams.
Don’t let their normal destroy your life. Don’t be sitting on your porch, telling you kid that he is free. He will see the broken dreams in your eye.
We talked for the last time, that day. He asked me what I had planned for the rest of my life. I told him I was going to build my bike, save me some money, and then riding as deep into South America as I could get.
He tells me I probably won’t make it back from that trip. But, if I want to go, and come home in a bag, come home in the bag. His last advice for me was to risk everything, for a dream. He told me I was free enough to get on, and go. “Dont let people talk you out of it Pete. I love you son. Go, live more than I did. Stop sitting here”.
So, I have been working. This site is to track my journey until I’m gone. I have almost finished my bike. Then spent years losing weight, getting in to shape. As I said, everyday, someone tells me I need to change.
To them, I say, I spend every dime making this happen. I won’t listen. You made your choices, sit down an let me make mine. You need to reread the name of this website, because it will always be A BIKER’S LIFE FOR ME! Live and die on two wheels.
A Biker's Life For Me! 